Technical Field
This application relates generally to electronic commerce among, e.g., mobile device end users, and companies that desire to sell products and services to those end users.
Brief Description of the Related Art
Mobile devices, such as a smartphone or tablet (e.g., Apple iPhone® and iPad® tablet, Android OS-based devices, wearable computing devices, etc.), have become ubiquitous in today's society. Faster processors, more memory, higher quality gesture-based multi-touch screens, availability of mobile broadband data, and integration of multi-media and GPS chips along with open interface mobile operating systems have opened the door for creation of a large variety of mobile applications. One such mobile application is a mobile device-based web site for a retailer. The mobile device-based web site provides information about products and services available from the retailer, together with conventional on-line shopping tools (e.g., shopping carts, product recommendation engines, etc.) to enable the mobile device end user to “shop” on the retailer's site, to identify and purchase such items, to arrange for their delivery, and the like.
Online marketplaces are also well-known. One type of marketplace provides a single web site that hosts pages from multiple providers via a common storefront. Other types of marketplaces, such as ebay.com, provide “forward” auctions wherein users bid to purchase available products. In a typical forward auction, buyers compete to obtain a good or service by offering increasingly higher prices. Other well-known sites provide reverse auctions, wherein sellers compete to obtain business from the buyer. At a reverse auction site, the site provides tools to enable users to name their own prices and to obtain products and services, such as airline tickets, hotel rooms, car rentals and vacation packages, that are available from the site. End users accessing the site select a general location, service level and price; the site maintains an inventory of available products; if a match is obtained, the hotel, rental car company and/or airline, as well as the exact location of the hotel and the exact flight itinerary, is disclosed, typically only after the purchase had gone through. In a reverse auction, prices typically decrease as the sellers undercut each other.
Other approaches to online retailing include such sites as Groupon.com or LivingSocial.com, by which local retailers define product/service deals that are then made available to end user subscribers in the form of a deal-of-the-day website that features discounted gift certificates usable at the local companies. There are many other such variations.
While the known approaches to online retailing are ubiquitous and provide many advantages to retailers and end users, there remains a need for a new paradigm that can match a customer's intention to buy with an appropriate retail offer, that, with respect to the offering sellers, enables the sale of goods and services at a higher average price (than, for example, may be available at deal-of-the-day sites), that prevents sellers from undercutting each other, and that inspires customer loyalty.